Well, I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and put on some sunscreen, so I’m feeling more human.
My stomach has also settled down some.
Stansted airport is…interesting.
I can’t say it’s bad, necessarily, but it’s definitely not ideal for a long layover. There’s not any publicly available outlets, which seems a bit strange to me. Then again, I’m still in Arrivals since I can’t go through Security and make my way to the gate until a few hours from now. Theoretically, I could just be in the one crappy part of the airport that doesn’t have any outlets because maybe there’s some nice lounge elsewhere I’m supposed to be sitting in.
Either way, here I am.
You know, for a country that used to be the seat of an empire, that literally colonized more than half of the globe and had a direct hand in its Westernization, and which still loves to tout itself as a wonderful place to be, all I’m saying is, this airport could have at least included some public outlets.
They stole wealth from the rest of the world. All I want is a little electricity.
In case you never noticed it before, airports are weird. Every shop here is in miniature. Everyone is coming, going, waiting, or watching it all happen. Everyone looks tired, older than they probably are, and even men, it seems, have adopted Resting Bih* Face.
Things that are normally private are also now semi-public, like when I had to brush my teeth earlier. I am also displeased to tell you that women’s bathrooms here are overcrowded and have a line, too.
(Why is our species like this? Have there been studies on this? Why is there never a line of men outside of the guys’ bathroom?)
I am just confused.
I have a 7 hour layover here and I was going to leave, take a train into London, walk around for an hour and come back, but I decided against it. First, the train tickets are kinda pricey round trip. Second, there are so many variables that could go wrong, especially without being able to use my phone’s map. I didn’t want to end up missing my last and final flight.
So here I am, in hell.
Well, it’s more like purgatory.
You know, I should end this post here for the sake of pacing, or not boring my reader, but frankly I don’t know what to do with myself. I have never been good with doing actual things when I’m in transit. I brought things I could occupy myself with. I have my French textbooks from the academic year, but I’m worried that I’ll be too tired to actually remember anything. Plus, staring at a book isn’t going to help me stay awake. I don’t want to miss my flight because I fell asleep in the same airport I’m flying out of. It would make for an AMAZING story, but only because it would actually be terrible to live through. So I’ve resolved to essentially write this and be on my computer until it dies.
Wish me luck. It’s a long layover.